I know there's a few members here who are fans of Creative Assembly's Total War series of historical PC strategy games.

 

This week saw the release of the long awaited eighth installment - Rome 2. This is a "Triple A" PC game release, with lots of publicity and media coverage and anticipation....

 

...and it's apparently fallen flat on its face.

 

Very poorly optimised graphics, CTDs and lockups, popular features from previous titles removed and lots of users reporting serious gameplay issues such as not-so-intelligent AI. Today the creative director of CA released a public statement apologising for the state of the game and promised to have it fixed. A first beta patch is out now, and the first official patch is scheduled for tomorrow.

 

 

I was really looking forward to this release. I pre-ordered the game earlier this summer. I have it installed but haven't had the chance to properly try it out yet, other than confirm the reports of very poorly optmised graphics. The reaction to the release has been pretty venomous, with people claiming they've been scammed or cheated, the pre-release previews didn't reflect the final product, etc etc. I've been with the TW series since the beginning and remember they all had issues on release - particularly "Empire" - but I find this one hard to swallow. I would have thought they'd learned their lesson with Empire and deliver a robust product on day one - note also the day one DLC, a trend I'm not too comfortable with.

 

I very much hope CA get their act together and fix Rome 2 as both the series and the fans deserve much better than this. Hopefully before long the very fertile and productive TW modding community will get to grips with Rome 2 and start producing some of the great mods that the series is famous for.

 

I'm curious as to the apparently increasing trend - both within the wider PC games industry, and the much smaller flight sim addon industry - of developers/publishers knowingly pushing out incomplete or flawed products to unwitting consumers and only then making vague promises to fix them. Is it ethical? Is it a sustainable business model?

I think it's a bit over-blown, and I'm also a long-time TW fan.

 

I pre-ordered it as well, but am disappointed, especially after how refined Shogun 2 is in it's current state (minus the siege AI of course... )

 

There are too many problems to list here, but my single biggest problem is the unit AI during battles (it is absolutely beyond freaking horrible, worse than anything I encountered in Empire).

 

As for your question about it being ethical, I think that's up to the perceived contract between the business and the customer. On Steam you see a lot of people jumping onboard the "Early-Access" games that are in Beta or even Alpha stage, and expect it. However, if the title is advertised as complete, it should be complete.

 

As for if it's a sustainable business model, Carenado and Captain Sim are still around aren't they?

As for if it's a sustainable business model, Carenado and Captain Sim are still around aren't they?

 

Haha! Very true! And a few others I can mention...

 

 

 

 

 

As for your question about it being ethical, I think that's up to the perceived contract between the business and the customer. On Steam you see a lot of people jumping onboard the "Early-Access" games that are in Beta or even Alpha stage, and expect it. However, if the title is advertised as complete, it should be complete.

 

Good point. Look at the DCS modules which were released as betas - they were up front and made it clear the customer was buying an unfinished product which was a work in progress. Perhaps a little more honesty from some commercial developers/publishers is what's needed.

It's not as bad as people are saying, it is very easy, units break way too easily.  The technology tree is awful, i can get Legionnaires in 254BC making the earlier formations redundant.

 

It looks OK, not as good as Shogun 2. I have owned every TW game since the original Shogun, it's probably the second worst release, Empire was terrible.

 

Overall, to fast to easy.

I was interested in Rome II as well, but after pre-ordering SimCity earlier this year, I decided to not take the chance this time around...glad I held off...

But I will be keeping my eyes on Rome II and may purchase once it has been fixed. I'm still not sure about some of the design changes though (more 'focused' gameplay with fewer armies, less political influence). 

I still haven't spent more than an hour on the first R:TW. I just couldn't resist when it was $2.75 on Steam a couple years ago.